Charles Cairns and Eric Raimy, eds.

This volume seeks to address the foundational questions in phonology, the study of how sounds are organized and used in natural languages. The essays in Contemporary Views on Architecture and Representations in Phonology demonstrate the benefits of the modular approach to phonology, either investigating interactions among distinct modules or developing specific aspects of representation within a particular module. Although the contributors take divergent views on a range of issues, they agree on the importance of representations and questions of modularity in phonology. The essays, all by distinguished phonologists, consider the status of phonological features, syllable theory, metrical structure, the architecture of the phonological component, and interaction among components of phonology. Demonstrating that computation and representation are inherently linked, this collection is unique in offering a coherent view of phonology not based on Optimality Theory which does not deny the theory but attempts to move the field beyond it. Charles E. Cairns (Queens College) is professor emeritus of linguistics at the Graduate Center.